Rutherford scattering

The scattering undergone by a stream of heavy charged particles fired at a sample of a heavy metal, caused by exposure to Coulomb forces in the atomic nuclei of the sample.

[After Ernest Rutherford.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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